Try not to laugh too hard. The Leveson-compliant press regulator Impress has made its first adjudication, ruling against Byline Media, one of its most vocal defenders. Byline, the conspiracy theory site with tinfoil mad-hatter Peter Jukes as CEO, was found guilty of defaming tabloid journalist Dennis Rice and ordered to pay him £2,500 in damages.The irony is just too delicious. Byline signed up to Impress as part of its campaign against the tabloid press. Now Impress has ruled against them and forced them to write a £2,500 cheque to one of their main critics.

“Dennis Rice, the claimant, contacted IMPRESS to make a request for arbitration to settle a legal claim of defamation, harassment and malicious falsehood, arising from two tweets sent out from the Byline Media Twitter account on 6th March 2017. On 7th April, the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators appointed Clive Thorne as independent arbitrator for the case. In the award, Mr Thorne upheld the claim in part. He found one of the two tweets to be defamatory and ordered that damages of £2,500 be awarded to Mr Rice.”

Byline – which campaigns for higher media standards – has been officially found to publish fake news…

Byline Media, the website run by anti-free press obsessive Peter Jukes, is organising a festival on journalism in the “post truth era”… with The Canary. Over three days in June Byline will be hosting a line-up of press-hating speakers including John Cleese and Hugh Grant in a tent in Sussex, which they are genuinely billing as a “Woodstock for the Facebook generation”. The festival promises to “fight back against fakenews” found in the mainstream media. Who best to lead the charge? Byline will be welcoming in Kerry Anne Mendoza, editor-in-chief of the infamous fake news site The Canary, which was behind the Portland coup conspiracy theory. Tells you all you need to know about the credibility of Byline and Jukes…

Who is behind Byline.com, the conspiracy website run by anti-press obsessive Peter Jukes? Byline has received £160,000 in funding from Eric Li, a Chinese billionaire who believes dictatorship is preferable to democracy and condemned pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. A supporter of totalitarian regimes is funnelling money into Britain to attack press freedom…

The Sunday Telegraph revealed that Eric Li “wrote regularly for The 4th Media, a website promoting anti-Western conspiracy theories”. Guido has been looking at some of the other articles published by 4th Media in China. The site claims 9/11 was “certainly a false flag operation” carried out by Israeland published an article headlined “Proof: Brussels terror attack was a false flag”. Another article is titled “Jews control the global media”, another complains of “Jewish banksters”, writes about “the Jewish lobby”, “New World Order” and the “Rothschilds”. It equates ISIS to Israel, claiming“The Islamic State and the Jewish State share the same philosophy, the only difference is their point of reference”.Eric Li’s articles and lectures were published and cross-posted by 4th Media “with permission”…

Byline’s conspiracy theories are funded by a billionaire Chinese supporter of totalitarianism. The other website bearing his name is openly anti-Semitic and says 9/11 was done by the Jews. When Byline pontificate about the evils of Fleet Street, remember who is paying them to say it…

UPDATE:Byline manager Peter Jukes responds: “Don’t know if quotes accurate and has no role in company”. He only gave them £160,000…

Peter Jukes, the man behind conspiracy site Byline, has claimed the Telegraph are secretly plotting to undermine him. Last night, an emotional Jukes alleged the Telegraph and LinkedIn are using “bots” in a “campaign” to target his contacts:

That would be a pretty extraordinary way for a newspaper to behave. Jukes nonetheless is convinced he is the victim of a conspiracy:

Indeed he believes “dark arts” are at play:

Could he be correct? Alas, as Phil Hendren explains, the LinkedIn emails are simply an algorithm used by the social media network:

“When our algorithm identifies a news story that mentions you, you’ll receive a You Made the News email. This email includes the news stories about you that are shared with your LinkedIn connections and followers, should your privacy settings allow such sharing.”

So no Telegraph conspiracy, just a LinkedIn algorithm that Jukes himself permitted in his privacy settings…

Tin foil hat wearing Jukes responded by making another allegation, that Hendren is an agent of Andy Coulson. Unfortunately, that theory also turned out to be false. Hendren has never met Coulson.

Remember, this is the man claiming the existence of a vast media conspiracy to cover up Whittingdale’s private life…

After Guido reported Tom Watson had spoken with the source of the Whittingdale dominatrix revelations “in detail” prior to publication, Watson felt the need to distance himself. First Robert Peston was briefed that Watson had told the Sunday People not to publish. Then he went on the record:

“I was very clear that he had a right to privacy and that as far as I could see there was no public interest in the story, although it was not for me to decide.”

Is this the whole truth?

Natalie Rowe, the story’s original source who spoke with Watson, says otherwise. In response to the above quote, Rowe claims Watson privately took a very different view:

Curiously Rowe then says she has been “advised” not to talk about Watson. She goes on to accuse him of “lies“.

Surely Watson couldn’t have had more involvement than he let on…

It’s not like he fell out with Whittingdale after their run ins on the CMS committee. Or that Rowe’s story ended up on Byline, a site with which Watson is friendly. How odd that the recollection of Labour’s deputy leader differs so significantly from that of the source…